JIMMY SMOTHERS: SEC shows dominance on diamond

Tuesday

May 29, 2012 at 8:14 PMSep 6, 2012 at 10:16 AM

Eight SEC teams are among the 64 teams that make up this year's NCAA Division 1 Baseball Championship bracket; and three of them are in the top eight, thus will be hosting regional and super-regional tournaments.

By Jimmy SmothersSports Editor Emeritus

• Football isn't the only collegiate sport dominated by teams from the Southeastern Conference. How about baseball?Eight SEC teams are among the 64 teams that make up this year's NCAA Division 1 Baseball Championship bracket; and three of them are in the top eight, thus will be hosting regional and super-regional tournaments.Actually, this isn't much of a surprise to people who follow college baseball, but football fans in this state may get a shock when they note that Florida is No. 1 and neither Alabama nor Auburn made the list. Adding to that shock for Tide fans is that LSU did, although the Tigers are the No. 7 seed. South Carolina is seeded eighth.The other top-eight seeds are (2) UCLA, (3) Florida State, (4) Baylor, (5) Oregon and (6) North Carolina.Other SEC teams in this year's field are Kentucky, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, Arkansas and Ole Miss. In addition, two schools that will become members of the SEC this fall, Texas A&M and Missouri, also made the baseball Top 64.The only two teams from Alabama to make the field this year are Samford and UAB, neither of which are members of the SEC.The tournament will begin Friday and continue throughout most of June.They call it the College World Series, which is a misnomer because that only applies to the final eight teams in the tournament. Actually, it is the NCAA Division 1 National Baseball Championship. Same thing with the women's event, which should be called the NCAA Division 1 National Softball Championship.One of the first things I was taught as a young sports writer was to always call something what it actually is when writing about it.• While on the subject of baseball, I'm going to take that thought a step farther and say Larry Foster was once the best high school baseball coach around here, and the Attalla school board made an excellent choice in bringing him out of retirement.Foster played baseball many years ago, and he coached in a later generation. He was successful in both eras. The upcoming group of athletes is of an even later generation, but the game is still hitting and pitching, throwing and catching, running bases and playing defense. It is my belief that Foster will be just as good of a coach today as he was when his Blue Devil teams were winning state championships for Etowah High. The only question will be if his players of the future will be as good as the ones he had in the past.•A month after the International Motorsports Hall of Fame inducted its Class of 2012 an elimination process already is under way to pick next year's inductees. First name on the list of 20 candidates that are to be narrowed to five by June 8 is that of Dale Inman, cousin to the Petty family.Dale is best known as the crew chief for Richard Petty for three decades. Under his watch, Petty won 198 races and seven championships. He also was the crew chief for Terry Labonte when he won the 1984 title.During the recent Alabama Sports Hall of Fame banquet I sat next to Donnie Allison. The conversation was about automobile racing. One topic was whether driver or equipment played the bigger role in winning a race. Allison said Petty was a better driver than most and had good equipment, so he was going to win a lot of races. However, the biggest factor that enabled Petty to really dominate racing all those years was Inman. I don't understand why he hasn't already been inducted into this hall of fame. The honor is long overdue.

Times Sports Editor Emeritus Jimmy Smothers can be reached at jmmys1@aol.com. His new book, “The Game,” may be purchased at The Gadsden Times' customer service desk.

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